Part IV - How Can I Get There from Here?

How can you help your patients fall in love with your business?How can you really manage your people/staff?How can your practice/life/family/you be more fun?How can you find peace?

Believe it or not, the answers to each of these questions are very similar. Perhaps the same.

The answer is - Ta Da……….. Drum Roll……….. Waiting……….

...Systematize your practice!

Creating and defining a repeatable system allows your people - AND YOU - to spend your time and attention on getting the jobs done faster and smoother, while having more fun.

Structure is freedom.Freedom to do the necessary, redundant tasks while enjoying the people around you more.While getting the job done faster without as much frustration and challenge, and having more time for you, for your family, for your friends, for your fun.While focusing on your creativity - in or out of your practice.

The systematized structure communicates your vision of how you want things done.Your people have something to work with - direction, goals, habits, and constant improvement.

The system provides predictability to your patients, parents and staff.People like to know what to expect.People like certainty.

And when you encourage your folks to look for innovative ways to improve the system, it will indeedeven get better.Way better.Nothing improves systems like people and their ideas as they perform the system tasks and realize how it could work better.

Looking for ways to improve on current systems should be encouraged - BUT - that doesn’t mean people go off willy-nilly and do it differently.It means your system has a line of communication to the person who will set up the innovation and quantification of it - the measure of it - to see what works and what doesn’t.

Back to your questions:

How can you help your patients fall in love with your business? The system. The system gives your patients certainty and the meeting of their expectations each and every time.The system gives you and the staff more time to enjoy the patients and parents, and have fun with them. The system allows you to focus on love, not on fear (of business, of people being unhappy, of whether or not you can ‘do it’). The system allows you to fall in love with the patients and parents.Truly.

“There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.”~ John Lennon

The system allows your true expertise to meet deep compassion and share it.

How can you really manage your people/staff?

The system.Managing people is impossible.

“Managing the system is possible and necessary to success.” ~ Michael E. Gerber

Picture this -- what if everyone on your team were focused every day on following/using the system you have created, and even making it better, instead of hanging out, playing it by ear (whatever that means), winging it, scratching their heads about what to do — or worse, coming toask YOU?

How would that feel?How much would you like your system then?

How can your practice/life/family/you be more fun?

How can you find peace?

You can find peace in your systems. You can find time in your system, because things don’t take as long.Things go smoother.There are less questions, problems, challenges.You can remain calm and working, enjoying it more.

You can quit working through lunch. You can quit leaving two hours after the rest of the staff. You can have recharge time for yourself. Your life can be YOUR life.

It’s time.

Want help?

Contact mefor information as to where to start.

RIGHT PHOTO: Dr. Chris Baker and Dr Luis Carriere chat following a 2017 Dubai seminar at which both of them taught.

Our minds and egos are amazingly capable of convincing us.Unfortunately, most of the convincing is in the negative realm.

As Jim Rohn liked to say, “Success (having a truly happy wonderful life) is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day; while failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day. It is the accumulative weight of our disciplines and our judgments that leads us to either fortune or failure, joy or despair.”

That decision about one “little dessert,” “one extra little bite,” one day’s exercise, spending rather than investing some money, are all chances to make choices in the success realm or the failure realm.

Make it your habit that your decisions will be in the positive direction, that your simple disciplines will take you to your happiness.

Think of how you’ll feel about yourself after a day of great decisions and simple disciplines!

Think, “I am taking responsibility. I am aware that there is something I can do to keep moving upward.And I will do it!”

Part III -- Why not you?

Dr Chris Baker practices and teaches around the world.

Each and every day, people are living their dreams.

People are getting wealthy. Practices are thriving, and getting free of insurance. Relationships are dynamic and wonderful. People are getting healthier every day, regardless of their age. Lives are improving every day. Let it be you! Your life can be the life of your dreams. Some people are living their dreams, and so can you! Let it be you!

Do you look at other practices, see them thriving and wish it could be you? You know, most people think about getting rich. Yet, only a very small percentage of them do. But anyone can. Someone is going to learn how to truly manage their practice, and turn it into the business it can be. Why not let it be you?

Don’t assume that you’re stuck with the way things are right now. You aren’t. Life changes every single moment, and so can you. It’s simply deciding - making a decision.

As the amazingJim Rohnencouraged people, Someone is going to make the decision to become healthier than ever before. Someone is going to decide to eat healthfully. Someone is going to start walking or running regularly. Someone is going to start walking the stairs every day. Why not let it be you?

Every day people decide to improve their lives. Every day decisions change the course of lives.

Why not let it be you?

Nobody says it better than Jim Rohn when he gives his simple steps to make it YOU:

1. COMMIT TO WORKING ON YOUAre you going to improve or stay the same? No matter what you have achieved, you are at a certain point right now. What you have achieved in the past is fine, but it doesn’t make a difference for the future. The decision about what you will become is made each day and every day.

Each day someone is making the decision to better him or herself. Let it be you.

2. MAKE A PLANOnce you have decided to become better, you will have to have a plan. It doesn’t have to be a long, intricate plan. It can be simple. Walk a mile a day. Read an article a day. Work ON your business (away from patients) an hour a day. That is a simple plan with achievable goals.
​Someone is going to develop a plan that will take them into the future of their dreams. Let it be you.

3. BEGIN YOUR ACTIONSAll of the great ideas, without action, become stale and useless. The key to turning dreams into reality is action. People who have great ideas are a dime a dozen. People who act on their dreams and ideas are the select few, but they are the ones who gain the wealth, health and wisdom that is available.

Someone will act today. Let it be you.

Stop looking at others who live the good life, wishing that you were as well, and instead begin to commit to your improvement, develop a plan and act on it. Someone is going to. Let it be you!

"I challenge you to make your life a masterpiece. I challenge you to join the ranks of those people who live what they teach, who walk their talk."~ Anthony Robbins

Part II -- Those Five People You Hang With

"You're the average of the five people you spend the most time with."-- Jim Rohn

Seriously?You must be thinking,

“Seriously? How can I be an average of the five people I spend the most time with?”

Yes, seriously. To the extent, even, that if you saw their financials, yours would be in the same neighborhood. To the extent even, that if your friends are fretters, so are you. And if your friends are fumers, about other folks, politics and life, so are you.

You see, we are all a part of the quantum soup of energy, slow, fast, or in-between. If we are surrounded by slow, negative, fretting, fuming, confused energy, it doesn’t just rub off - it overtakes us. It is impossible to rise above that energy. The calibration level of the folks around you not only affects you, but becomes you. Or maybe it is better to say, you become it.

If the people to whom you are closest say they’re going to “think about it,” chances are good you will “think about it,” also. No action. If one of your close friends says he/she is going to start walking or running every day, jump on that! Or, you suggest the same. If no one follows - or wants to do it with you - maybe you need a new friend.

Years ago, when Claude and I had gotten serious in our relationship, Claude’s oldest son Trey then was in the throes of the autism spectrum. After a wonderful week away together with the children on a sparsely inhabited island off the Florida coast, we arrived back in Kentucky, all tired yet wonderfully refreshed. However, during that week, Trey had discovered that I was a fairly organized, strict purveyor of schedules, food, activities and so forth, actually excellent for autistic-traited folks, yet not to his great liking. He looked at his Dad and commented, “Dad, I think you need a new friend.”

(The happy outcome is that I am now Trey’s mother, following his adoption, his autism is greatly left behind, and he is crazy about me.)

If your friends aren’t growing, becoming, working on real legacies, you probably need new friends.

Seriously, how can you stop worrying, wondering, and doubting when those around you are worrying, wondering and doubting? How can you laugh at the confusion when those around you are not laughing at all? How can you grow when folks around you are stagnant. It’s been said you’re either growing or you’re dying.

The things you think about, focus on, and people you surround yourself with, ultimately shape who you become.

So, if your friends are on the Slight Edge - looking for tiny actions and decisions to make their life better, so are you. If your friends live by CANI (Constant and Never-ending Improvement), so do you.

It’s a deeply humbling reality to realize not only are your friends a reflection of you, and vice versa, but think about it - your practice is a reflection of you.

Let’s look at that again. Your practice - not just the orthodontics, the dentistry, not just the staff, not just the level of patient satisfaction, but also the effectiveness of the business, the financials, the building, the office, the treatment bay - it’s all a reflection of you. That is a huge and deeply humbling reality for all of us!!

Get your friends - get new friends if you need to - and get to work ON YOU.

Part 1 - The Big Picture

We go to dental school, to residency, and then finally (it seems), we are ready to go into practice.Did you have any idea what that entailed?

Did you know anything about a business?

Did you even know what you wanted practice to be like?I daresay you assumed it would give you a place to do your outstanding orthodontic or dental care, a job, and an income.Oh - and if it was your own practice, you got to "be your own boss.”

Now what does your practice look like?It does give you a place to do your outstanding orthodontic or dental care, right? It's probably more of a job than you bargained for, and an income - with more going out in expenses than you would have dreamed - or than you want!

And in practice for yourself you get to be your own boss - and work longer hours than the rest of the staff, unless you want to pay a lot of overtime and entrust some of the challenging business things to them (and you’re not sure if that’s good).

How’s it workin’ for ya? As the leader of your business, it’s your job to think about the bigger picture.

And there is, believe it or not, a bigger picture. A way bigger picture.

What is in the bigger picture that is missing from the picture you have now?

IF your practice is a reflection of you - and it is - then who you are defines the picture.And who you are is something to figure out.Who are you?What do you want?What do you want your life to be?And when you get that figured out, then how do you get there?

“You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of. You don't have charge of the constellations, but you do have charge of whether you read, develop new skills, and take new classes.”~ Jim Rohn

Changing your life comes from figuring out who you are and what you want life to be.

And changing who you are comes from changing what and how you think. Changing what you think can come from changing your actions, your words and expressions, your food, your exercise, your activities, and who you hang with.

“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”~ Jim Rohn

Back to your practice.If you have a desire and need to change anything about your practice, work ON you first.Einstein once said, “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”

Don’t let it overwhelm you.You can change you by changing the tiniest decisions, tiniest habits, tiniest actions, one at a time.Today take time to meditate.Today take time for a walk or run.Today go home at a reasonable hour from the office. Think about what you want, who you are, who you want to be.Maybe - write some of your thoughts down.

Next in Part 2 of How’s it workin’ for ya? -Those five people you hang with

Dr Chris Baker

Dr. Chris Baker is Past President of the American Orthodontic Society, a pediatric dentist and teacher of orthodontics, An author, dental practice consultant, mentor, and a current or former faculty member of three U.S. dental schools, Dr Chris practices and blogs in beautiful Abu Dhabi, UAE, and glorious Texas, USA.